What Family Means to Me
by Cassie Bones
Summary: My Submission for the Castle Ficathon 2019 Lily Castle is all grown up and writing her first book...about her family and what the concept of 'Family' means to her. or My attempt at writing a history for the Castle fam Post-Series
1. Chapter 1

**What Family Means to Me:  
a series of personal essays  
by Lily Jo Castle**

Family is often defined as any group of persons closely related by blood, as parents, children, uncles, aunts, and cousins – at least according to , it is. But I've always defined family a bit differently. Maybe that's due to the circumstances under which I was raised.

You see, both of my parents were raised without any siblings. My dad was raised without a father of his own in the picture (I'm not even allowed to really talk about my grandfather to anybody who is already familiar with the man and his elusive past) and my mom's parents were both lawyers, so making time for more than the single, wild child daughter they had was near impossible. That, plus the fact that my maternal grandmother passed quite suddenly when my mom was still a teenager (more on that later).

But, despite the lack of biological aunts or uncles, that doesn't mean that my family was much smaller or less chaotic than anybody else's. For example, my parents, upon meeting, almost immediately had mutual friends—much to my mother's chagrin.

There were my uncles, Javi and Kevin, and my Auntie Lanie (also about to become my mother-in-law; to be explained later), who worked with her at the Twelfth Precinct. Uncles J and K were detectives (now retired), working on her team, and Auntie Lanie was—and still is—a coroner, though she's since been "upgraded", as she says, to Chief Medical Examiner, with perks allowing her to have "bank hours" while her dedicated staff takes on all the "grunt work".

Auntie Lanie is quite blunt, but that's one of the best things about her, to be honest.

Then there's my Auntie Hayley, who began working with my parents years after their initial meeting and subsequent marriage, but before my birth. Her past is far more elusive than any person I've ever met, but she's been there for as long as I've been alive, so she counts. Plus, her accent is amazing. My brothers and I would ask her to say things "in British" all the time when we were little and she never said no.

In addition to my parents, aunts, uncles, and brothers, I have one older sister, Alexis, who was well into her twenties by the time I was born. But age never seemed to matter when we were together. She has always been there for me, either to babysit, or to share her experiences with me when life just was _not _going my way. For all intents and purposes, Alexis was my best friend. She still is. Except for…well, my fiancée.

More on that, later.

My grandma, Martha, and grandpa, Jim, are both very big parts of my life growing up. Both are in their nineties now, but still kicking. Granny Martha raised my father all on her own, while also working as a struggling actress, both on and off-Broadway. They moved around a lot and my dad picked up some strange habits sitting backstage with other extras and crew members, but he was almost never left hungry or unhappy. Granny made sure of it.

Grandpa, on the other hand, had plenty of help from my late Nana Johanna (a name my father came up with, just to make me giggle), who was somehow more equipped to deal with the wild child that was my mother (I don't believe it, to be honest. I'm entirely convinced they're all pranking me about it, but I haven't yet been able to disprove it…). He has some demons of his own from the time after Nana passed, but with Mom's help he was able to work past them. I'm happy to still have him around today, because who else would take me fishing at the lake?

My aunts and uncles had children of their own, too, of course. Just not as "conventionally" as my mom and dad, who waited until after they were married a full year to get pregnant with me. (Fun fact: my mom was recovering from bullet wounds to the abdomen when she found out she was pregnant with me. There is so very much to unpack there…soon.)

Well, actually, Uncle Kevin and Aunt Jenny were married when they had Sophia Grace, their eldest child and another "big sister" figure in my life. Their eldest son, Nicky, is pretty much my big brother, too. I'm the same age as their third child, Brianna. They have three more after that, though.

Irish Catholics.

A year (almost to the day) after I was born, Aunt Lanie gave birth to twins, Nia and Joaquin, fathered by my Uncle Javier. They were not married and never got married. They're not even together now. I'll explain later, but Nia and Joaquin were my very best friends all throughout our childhood. We shared birthday cakes and parties (always extravagant, thanks to Dad's bestselling novels) and had adventures in the backyard of my grandpa's cabin upstate, and went camping with our moms…childhood would have been very different without them.

Aunt Hayley never gave birth but…well, I don't want to spoil anything, so you'll find out soon enough, if you choose to continue reading these essays.

Alexis got married and had two children—both boys—with her wife. Yes, she's married to a woman. My nephews are named Lukas and Ricky and they are almost carbon copies of my dad, except for their fiery red hair. I love them, but boy can they be annoying sometimes. Basically, I have four little brothers with them around. My sister-in-law is named Becca and I love her and would die for her.

But, if you knew my family, you might say that doesn't mean much. We're _all _willing to die for each other and anybody else who needs our help. It's a Castle thing.

Anyway, every single person I've mentioned here is my family, by blood, by marriage, or by any other means, they are as important to me as my genetically similar person. And, with this series of essays, I hope to adequately explain why that is.


	2. Chapter 2

**Johanna Beckett  
(aka Nana Johanna)**

In my previous essay, I mentioned the fact that my Nana Johanna died when my mother was still a teenager, nearly twenty years before my own birth and a full ten years before my parents met. But, I probably didn't mention the fact that Nana's death was the catalyst that brought my parents together. No, I _definitely _didn't mention that.

Okay, so quick explanation: my Nana was a lawyer, with a special interest in civil rights. She fought for the underdog and did whatever she could to help those less fortunate than herself and her family. My mom was raised in Upper Manhattan, which should tell you a lot about her family's finances and how well she grew up. She attended a private school, where most of the population was the children of diplomats and doctors and the like, so Nana Johanna was pretty much seen as a rich white lady looking to get brownie points for her "charity".

But that's not who she was. Not at all.

According to my grandpa and mom, Nana truly cared about the people she helped. She _constantly_ worked pro bono on domestic violence cases, civil rights violations, and other cases where her clients otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford her. She had a 91% success rate as a defense lawyer, too, so you know she took it seriously. My mom was set to follow in her footsteps when she was accepted into the pre-law undergraduate program at Stanford University.

Then…it happened.

I'd rather not go into all the gory details, for respect of my mother, but a quick internet search of Johanna Beckett will tell you the whole story. There's a foundation set up for her and everything, courtesy of my dad.

Anyway, her death sparked a change in my mom. When she finished her first—and only—year at Stanford, she shifted her focus to criminal justice and transferred to NYU, abandoning her plans of becoming Chief Justice in favor of becoming a Homicide Detective.

And _that _is where she met my dad.

It's difficult for me to think about the fact that my grandmother's death is the reason I exist, because that means that in any other timeline, I never get to meet her and spend time with her, or hear stories about my mother's childhood with her _from _her.

But my mom has told me plenty about my Nana Johanna; stories from her own childhood and tales that she heard from my Grandpa Jim about their days together in college. She's even got a few stories from Nana's childhood that her grandparents told her, so that's what I'm going to share with you right now.

Here are a few of my favorites.

When Nana was a young girl, she originally wanted to be…a superhero. Like the kind of superhero that flies through cities and uses her supersonic hearing to rescue people falling off buildings or getting mugged. She was a huge fan of Wonder Woman and my grandpa even has a picture of her in a Halloween costume when she was a teenager, striking the classic WW pose. Sometimes, I believe that her dreams came true, because the way people talk about her…she definitely _sounds _like a superhero. My mom definitely took after her in that respect.

When Mom was a baby, Grandpa Jim bought a cabin upstate with some kind of advance from work (he was a lawyer too; now retired) and Nana made it her business to start a garden in the fenced off backyard. Grandpa said that she would take my mom out there to work with her every summer. Obviously, as a baby, my mom wasn't much help, but Nana would sing songs to her as she planted new vegetables and flowers, softly lulling her to sleep as she lay in a bassinet. As she grew older, Mom would help and sing with her. My mom's voice is amazing and I can only imagine what Nana sounded like.

Nana Johanna was always 'the cool parent' when my mom was growing up. She always seemed to understand what my mom needed and when she needed it. That's not to say that my mom was never grounded or given realistic limitations, but Nana was a lot more understanding that Grandpa Jim, for sure. He was the kind of dad that freaked out when Mom came home with a leather-clad boyfriend, while Nana just laughed and shook her head. Mom says she always knew when a relationship was doomed, but she never discouraged her from following her heart. Also, she apparently made the _best _comfort food. My mom has some of her old recipes.

Once, when my mom came home really late at night (like 2am at age 17), Nana was waiting for her in the dark (like you see in movies and tv shows, for real) and my mom said she thought that she was going to be grounded forever, but instead Nana made her to write a letter explaining what was so important that she needed to be out that late and why it was worth making her worry that she had been kidnapped or killed or worse. My mom said that halfway through writing the letter, she began to cry and Nana was there with a plate of cookies and a hug. It was the first and probably only time that my mom was completely okay with being grounded for two weeks and she never did something like that again.  
Years later, she used the same tactic on me. It worked.

Christmases were always my Nana's favorite, because it meant hot chocolate and colorful decorations and spending as much time with her family as possible. As lawyers, she and Grandpa Jim didn't get a lot of time to spend with their only daughter, outside of holidays and the small vacations they took in the summer up at the cabin, so when Nana got a full week every year between Christmas and New Year's, she made sure to make good use of every second with my Mom. They went skating in Rock Center, gazing up at the beautifully lit tree and sipping hot chocolate to keep warm. They went to all the different shops on Fifth Avenue, marveling at the bright window displays and trying on ugly Christmas sweaters. Whenever my mom found something that she loved but couldn't afford to buy with her own allowance, it was almost a sure bet that she'd find it under the tree on Christmas Day. Once again, she continued the tradition for me and my brothers, so I'm forever grateful to my Nana Johanna for everything she's given us.

My family has never been super religious, but I kind of hope that there is someplace in the afterlife where Nana is waiting up for us. I'd really love to meet her someday, to thank her and tell her that, despite never having met before, I love her so much.

Thanks, Nana Johanna, for all you've given our family.


End file.
